


Too Much to Bear

by theangelsareamongus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepy, Dark, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Monsters, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Scary, Spooky, scary story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangelsareamongus/pseuds/theangelsareamongus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scary story about what lurks in the dark. No gender or character name, just supposed to make you feel like you ARE the character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much to Bear

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for an English assignment. He just wanted us to freelance and see what our writing style is like, and since it's the month of Halloween, I decided to attempt writing a scary story.

I lay on the couch with my hand clenched in a fist underneath my chin. Snuggled up against the arm of the couch wearing pajama pants and my extra large red t-shirt. The dim glow of the television in front of me as the clock off to the side burns 2:23 in red. My eyes are droopy and begin to close on their own.  
 _I can’t stay awake any longer_ I think to myself as the image on the television screens grows fuzzy. I reach over the arm of the couch to the small table and pick up the remote to switch off the TV. I press the little red button and the screen shuts off to black making that faint hum sound. I pick myself up off the couch and shuffle to the bathroom.  
After the usual bedtime routine, I head down the hall to my room. All the lights in the house are off except in my bedroom. The street light outside burned out over a year ago and no one’s bothered to fix it, so the neighborhood seems to have vanished into a black void. Somehow it makes the house’s shadows thicker than they ought to be as they creep up the hallway toward my bedroom, as I’ve been noticing a lot more recently.  
I turn to the bed, and catch my eyes dropping to the dark slit underneath. _How childish to still be afraid of the dark._ Except for that blackness, the entire room always looks deceptively cheerful when the light is on. _Funny how I was scared of the closet when I was five._ Dad used to tell me all the time that there was nothing hiding in the closet, and he was right.  
I reach for the light switch by the door, eyes still locked on the underside of the bed. Somehow _it stares back._  
My hand stops. _Better not just yet._ I turn on the bedside lamp first, then walk back across the room and flip the light switch. The room dims, but a safe yellow aura envelops the bed.  
It’s only six steps to the mattress. Stepping near the shadow under the bed fills me with the sense of balancing on the edge of a cliff. I didn’t dare to step too close most nights.  
I take a step toward the bed, diverting my eyes to the pillows to distract me from the dark spot. _Don’t acknowledge it. It’s nothing to be afraid of. A figment of your over-active imagination. That’s all._  
I clear the last two feet with a graceful bound, landing square on the center of the mattress. I climbed under the comforter, tucked the bottom under my feet, so there’s no way to reach in, and wrapped myself up like a burrito. _Nice and cozy. Except now I’m wide awake._  
The hum of the air conditioner is a slight comfort. It’s deep and gentle, and hopefully the only sound I’ll hear tonight. Soothing ambience always helps me to sleep better.  
I lay there in bed restless, and after a while, I realize that I need to use the bathroom. Not a lot, but just enough to keep me from falling asleep straight away. I could probably leap clear of the bed and make it to the bathroom with little incident, but then I’d have to hope it didn’t decide to follow me there. And sometimes it’s not under the bed. Sometimes it’s somewhere else in the house. I can hear it wandering around out there on rare occasions. One night, I almost bumped into it on the way to the kitchen late one night. Since then I could never force myself to set foot outside the room after bedtime for fear of being ambushed.  
I decided to tough it out. _I don’t have to go that bad._ I pull the comforter up to my cheek and close my eyes trying to focus on the hum of the air conditioner.  
Then it shuts off. The hum dies with a deep sigh and a dull “kathunk”.  
Silence.  
Outside, not a single leaf rustles. My ears don’t even ring from the night’s noise. I start to wish for a car alarm, or a catfight, or the distant blare of a passing train. The house is dead calm. All I can do is lie here, wrapped in the comforter ever-tighter, focused on the darkness behind my eyelids until I pass out.  
 _Maybe I won’t hear it speak if I go to sleep quickly enough._ The few times it spoke before, it called out my name — it’s known my name from the beginning — and when it was sure I was listening intently, it giggled. Then it was quiet for the rest of the night.  
It doesn’t stir often enough for me to get used to it. Once or twice every other month. Usually I just hear its voice coming from somewhere in my room, laughing quietly to itself — a soft voice, almost a whisper but not quite. It always sounds like it’s coming from the entire room, but I know its origin is under there, in the shadows. The worst part is its unbearably motherly tone, like its desire to do unspeakable things to me has escalated to the feeling of…adoration.  
Just the thought of hearing it talk sends chills up my spine. I pull the comforter over my head, curling into a fetal position, eyes tightly shut.  
I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying here, curled into a pitiful and slightly painful little ball. My joints ache. _Has an hour passed? A few minutes? Will daylight never come?_ I want to peek out of the haven I made with the comforter to check the time, but the fear of seeing the thing staring back at me freezes every joint in my body. But if it were standing at the side of the bed just now, watching you, it makes no sense that it would only wait until I’ve seen it to pounce on me, and a lot of good the comforter would do for protection.  
The house is so deathly silent… _maybe a little peek won’t hurt_ …  
My eyes have fully adjusted to the dark. Peering through a small hole between the covers and the mattress, I can discern every piece of furniture in the room, and every poster on the wall.  
The bedside clock reads…3:12. Less than an hour has passed since I went to bed, but it appears I must have dozed off at some point. The house is just as unnervingly still as it was when I slipped away. Maybe the stillness, itself, jarred me to waking.  
 _No. No, that isn’t it. That isn’t it at all._ The house isn’t completely still. Though the floor of your room is draped in blackness as far out as the hallway, I could swear I spotted a twitch of movement. Sudden and swift, like something darting out of view to avoid detection.  
The voice whispers my name. I’m not sure I heard it at first — not because it’s so quiet, but because part of my mind is trying so desperately to shut it out. My throat seals up. I feel all the blood drain from my face as I pinpoint the source…is at the foot of the bed.  
“The hunger’s too much to bear,” it whispers.  
Resistance is beyond myself now: terror has taken control of my entire body. I stare down the comforter toward my feet.  
 _It’s looking at me._ The thought made me shudder.  
Peering over the lumps in the sheets, staring with two sightless slits in a dry, shriveled, hairless head. Its mouth stretches into a wide, insane grin. How long has it been watching me?  
I want to scream and pull my feet back from the thing’s horrible face, but my legs ignore the command again and again, even as those ghastly fingers slither onto the mattress and take hold of my right foot. Even as it pulls my foot closer and stuffs it, still wrapped in the comforter, into that gaping, grinning mouth. It has no teeth. It has no teeth but its nails are like razor chisels. It has no teeth so it minces its food by hand.  
I let out a horrified cry and break free of my trance to reel both legs in, ducking under the comforter. I scream again and again, calling for help, but all that comes out is sobbing incoherence. It’s climbing onto the bed now, clawing at the covers, its bony arms reaching inside, searching for something to grab a hold of. It’s going to drag me onto the floor, and from there I daren’t think. I swat its hands away frantically, screaming at the feel of its leathery skin, gagging at the smell of its cold, rancid breath as it whispers in my ears through the comforter, madly repeating with awful glee, “It’s too much to bear! It’s too much to bear!”  
Still sobbing and kicking, I suddenly realize I’m alone on the bed.  
My eyes jump from one end of the room to the other. It’s nowhere to be found. My skin still quivers from its touch, and that graveyard stench still lingers in my nostrils, but the moment I acknowledge either sensation…it vanishes.  
My dreams haven’t shaken me up this badly in a while, and I swear to myself that I’m okay now. Confident that the nightmare is over and the demons have been chased off once again, I lay back on the bed with my head resting softly on the pillows.  
 _Monsters are not real. They’re never real._  
I close my eyes once more, my mind struggling to shut out the unnerving silence. But now I may never sleep again.  
The thing giggles.  
My eyes open partway to scan the floor for movement, but it’ll be hours before they adjust to the darkness again. Pulling the covers over my head like before, I curl back into a ball and wait.  
The room is silent the rest of the night.


End file.
